The St. Lawrence University Overwatch team fell to Newberry College 3-0 in a competitive, back-and-forth National Association of Collegiate Esports match on Monday night.
 
Both teams entered the match with 3-1 records in the NACE Overwatch Fall Cup Group E standings, and while the Saints were unable to secure a point, every battle was competitive until the end.
 
The match opened with the Lijiang Tower control point map, and it was a back-and-forth contest, with St. Lawrence winning the first leg of the best-of-three battle 100-46. Newberry responded with a 100-0 shutout to make the point all square.
 
In the final engagement at Lijiang Tower, the Wolves grabbed control of the point early, running their meter up to 26%, but the Saints were able to fight back to take a 29-26 lead. Newberry responded and almost closed out the point, but St. Lawrence was able to regain control and hold the point for an extended period before Newberry won it, defeating the Saints 100-84 to take a 1-0 lead in the match.
 
The second point was held on the Junkertown payload map. St. Lawrence started on offense and got to the first checkpoint quickly, but Newberry's aggressive defense nearly prevented the Saints from reaching the second checkpoint until overtime. St. Lawrence rebounded with a solid push on the third segment of the map, almost reaching the final checkpoint before running out of time.
 
The Wolves also struggled to reach the second checkpoint thanks to a robust defensive strategy by the Saints, but Newberry took a 2-0 lead in the match by matching the Saints' performance with about a minute left on the clock.
 
Newberry clinched the win on the King's Row hybrid map. St. Lawrence opened with a nearly flawless round on offense, claiming control of the point quickly and advancing the payload through two checkpoints to finish with 3:46 left on the clock.

The Wolves struggled to match the Saints' performance, nearly running out of time before pushing the payload to the finish line.
 
In the extra round, Newberry had just a minute on the clock but was able to gain control of the point and push the payload 63.2 meters. The Saints coordinated multiple attempts to gain control of the point and were able to run the meter up to 69.7%, but Newberry was able to respond to every St. Lawrence attack, preventing the Saints from unlocking the payload before running out of time.
 
"Tonight's game was one of our closest yet," said Saints' Overwatch coach Kyle Jicha. "We put on a great effort and will take the lessons we learned on to our next matches."

St. Lawrence, now 4-3 overall and 3-2 in NACE Overwatch Fall Cup play, will face Aracadia in an ECAC match on Wednesday, then wrap up the week with another NACE match against Randolph-Macon on Thursday. Both matches are set for an 8 p.m. start.

St. Lawrence Lineup
Jason Angelos (neonJason)
Conner Black (SLU)
Aoife Currie (TransRights)
Gavin Prescott (Hardvark)
Sam Putney (SputnikGT)
Brian Uceta (Drizzle)